TAG Heuer Racer Smartphone - Is Android Worth £2500?

Swiss watch-maker TAG Heuer has announced its second Android smartphone. The TAG Heuer Racer costs 2800 Euro and is inspired by GT Racing cars. But, no, it won't drive you to the shops.

Other than telling us the Racer smartphone is all about "high performance", we don't yet know a great deal about this phone's specs. It'll run Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, though, and while you might expect to see a quad-core CPU packed-in at the £2400-ish price, we have a hunch it'll use something less beefy.

From first impressions, the TAG Heuer racer's high performance claims seem to be more about design than raw power. It features a ruggedised rubber body with a carbon fiber panel on the pack, screwed into place with titanium fittings. The way the teaser video glides across the phone's shiny, textured surfaces makes it feel like a trailer for a Michael Bay film, with a near-pornographic obsession with its sumptuous bumps and ridges. Ooh err.

The TAG Heuer Racer uses a custom 3D user interface slapped on top of the Android software, but the promo doesn't give any clues as to what it'll be like. Let's hope it'll a little less intense than the bodywork.

We find designer phones problematic at TrustedReviews. Even when they're decent phones, like the BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9881, any notion of value flies out the window and bursts into flames once a designer name gets involved. Can a phone really be worth upwards of £2000 when it's nothing special once you strip off its fancy garb?

The TAG Heuer Racer will be available from July and, unsurprisingly, will be sold in carefully selected shops, rather than the local Carphone Warehouse. What do you think - a thing of beauty or something that looks like it has been ripped out of a mid-90s action flick?

ElectricSheep

March 13, 2012, 5:23 pm

Funny title - Is 'Android' worth £2500? What should the reader be inferring TR?

Everlast

March 13, 2012, 11:42 pm

I was thinking of buying a TAG Heuer watch for about a grand (sterling), but seeing how they want to overcharge me for a plastic mobile phone I reconsidered.

nathan smith

September 12, 2013, 8:11 pm

That makes no sense... And it's not plastic? Would you not buy a Ferrari (if you could afford it) because they over charge for a Ferrari horse baseball cap?

Howard Roark

August 9, 2014, 6:41 pm

If there is a market for Tag's watches & Rolex ( costing above 2 grands), why not an electronic gadget like this for a couple grands? There is a market for this. Just because the author( & many people) cannot afford a mercedes or a Ferrari ( or a Tag Heuer Smartphone), doesn't mean they are overpriced & lack an equivalent value.

Howard Roark

August 9, 2014, 6:45 pm

Just an old dirty practise of getting a lot of pageviews by over hyping & manipulating titles, even when it leads to pure-low-grade content.

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